


When Running Becomes A Pain

by islandgirl_246



Series: Where Do We Run? [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alpha Peter Hale, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt Derek Hale, M/M, Mercenary Braeden, Talk of Suicide, inference of rape (no depictions), supernatural Stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-09-06 02:04:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8730448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/islandgirl_246/pseuds/islandgirl_246
Summary: Stiles gave Derek some advice and a warning before he was sent off to Iowa to heal after his torture at the hands of Kate and Gerard Argent. Being partly responsible for hunters almost having access to exterminate your family is a bitter pill for anyone to swallow. Realising you are just as fucked up as your now dead mother is no better. He doesn’t want to be saved, he knows this. But then he meets a woman with an even darker and murkier past that he has. Could she be his way back? Does he even deserve one?***UPDATED 2016-12-31***Needed to correct some inconsistencies in Braeden's history, so rewrote quite a bit of those details, but the story essentially is much the same.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, where to start.  
> Because of the awesome response to Running . . .But Not Far Enough, and several requests for a glimpse into Derek, what happened to him and what transpired between him and Stiles in that private conversation, I came up with this. It's given me an idea to do a series of one chapter spin-offs with the couples from Running . . ., and I've at least three planned out including this one. I won't probably have a regular update schedule as I'm working on something else right now, but when the mood strikes I will add to this. Also there will be a full sequel with everyone and a new evil to face once the one shots are done. I’m excited about the premise for it.  
> Anyway, please pay attention to the tags. Some heavy stuff is discussed here so take care of yourselves. If in doubt check the end notes.

He sat at the table with his head hung low. That’s how he felt. How he always felt these days, low. Nothing could fix it, and worse, he didn’t want anything to. He deserved it all. He just wished they’d left him to die. That would have been a fitting fate. A fate he would have deserved and understood. He didn’t understand this.

“Derek?” Emissary Sara called to him softly. She always spoke to him softly, like one would a deer or cub so as not to scare it. And again he wished she wasn’t so gentle. He deserved to be yelled at, desecrated, belittled . . . beheaded.

“I’m fine,” he muttered, knowing well that he wasn’t. And furthermore, that Sara knew he wasn’t. Hell, the entire pack in Valley, West Des Moines, Iowa knew he was anything but fine, or ok, or settled.

But he was so tired. So tired of the pain. So tired of containing an unhappy wolf. Just really fucking drained. It wasn’t always like this. Sometimes he could forget for a while, but then when he least expected it, it all crept back and he felt hollow again.

“You’re not,” she said, coming up and sitting next to him as her pack members cleared the remains of dinner from the table. “But you will be again, Derek. I promise. It’s been getting better. You know that.”

He grunted something that could have passed for agreement and rose from the table, walking off into the dark.

When the weather was nice, the large pack would often eat outdoors. It was always hell to organise so many people around the picnic-like tables, but from here they could almost hear the waters of the nearby Racoon River rushing by. It calmed them all. Well, most of them. When the old ghosts returned, Derek refused to be soothed, by anyone or anything.

“He’s unsettled again?” Alpha Ian McCormick came silently up beside her as they both watched the young wounded wolf disappear into the night.

Sara nodded and turned worried eyes to her Alpha. “I don’t know if time is what he needs. It’s like he’s given up, and he won’t let his wolf rest, heal, or be comforted.

Ian sighed. He was a big red wolf, whose family had migrated from Ireland to the United States so long ago that the only thing Irish about him was now his name and drops of DNA of generations before. He was a powerful man to look at. And no one that encountered him thought him anything but a rock – a virtual rock in the plains of Des Moines. But he was also a gentle man when he needed to be, which was one of the reasons Peter had chosen here as the place for his nephew’s recuperation. It was also what made him the kind of leader he was.

But now, even after almost two years, while there were minute changes in Derek, for the most part he was still so hard on himself, and that troubled Ian as well. Derek was no trouble, that was for sure. But neither was he happy, sad, angry . . . If they were not a pack of mostly wolves, they would never know what he was feeling and when to give him his space – like now. He seemed resigned to be unhappy and that wouldn’t do.

“I worry about him. Maybe we’re not what he needs, Ian.” It pained Ian to hear such despair in Sara’s voice. She knew what it was to suffer and he knew she wouldn’t rest until she found a way to help the wolf.

“Be patient. He needs time and patience.” He pressed a strong hand to his pack mate’s shoulder and departed for the main house, leaving her to her thoughts.

She’d stay somewhere near, not daring to sleep, until the young man returned safely.

Similar to Beacon Hills, many in the McCormick pack lived in the main mansion. The pack was divided into the chief McCormick family, and then the other families, mainly the Miltons and the Blacks, who spread among the many cottage-like houses across their land. There were McCormicks, either married, mated or otherwise tied living in the cottages as well. McCormicks founded the land on which they had built their home spread, but later a Black became the first outside beta and then married into the Miltons. The pack was larger than the Beacon Hills Hale Pack, which Ian knew after a short visit was starting to grow again, and given how old the Iowa pack was, it was considered one of the most powerful in the mid-US, with their 30+ members. Hunters over the years had decimated most of the other large packs across the country. The McCormicks was not a pack most hunters wanted to take on. It would be a suicide run; Ian and Sara would make sure of it.

Each morning Derek got up without rancour, did his chores on the family farm, headed to classes at Des Moines University and returned in the afternoon or evening to help out some more. The work, the back breaking, gritty, sweaty heat of it appealed to him. It was the only thing that did. It was something his wolf understood, the pain of a good ache in the muscles at the end of the day. And he didn’t mind the fact that it left him covered in dirt and grime and smelly either. No, it was what it was.

That was, until he walked into the main house one evening and his wolf perked up at the smell of something completely different – something  . . . someone decidedly human.

++++++

“I really appreciate you doing this. I just need to catch my breath for a bit,” the voice said with a cadence of embarrassment and a hint of pain.

“What you need is to allow your very human body to heal. Because you run with wolves and all manner of supernatural beings doesn’t mean you have to have their endurance. That’s a bit mental.”

“Sara, I just need a couple days, a week tops,” the voice added, a little bit censure, a little bit wary acceptance, as Sara’s daughter Sophia let out a peal of giggles.

“Careful with her and your ribs. She doesn’t know her own strength yet,” Sara cautioned. “And you’re just trying to find an excuse to go rushing off again. You know you’re welcome here anytime, and we haven’t seen you in more than a year. This might have been fate’s way of getting you to slow down and come see us,” Sara said, and Sophia squealed.

Derek turned the corner and pulled up sharp at the sight before him. The woman’s skin was smooth and dark. But the left side of her face bore a striking scar . . . down to her neck and disappeared beneath the collar of the T-shirt she was wearing. A worn leather jacket, no doubt hers, lay cast aside across the back of the chair she was seated in, and her left wrist was encased in a dark leather cuff. In front of her was a cold sweating glass of something frothy that could be beer in discrete disguise. In her lap was a wriggling, giggling, two-year-old Sophia, clearly enjoying the busy moving fingers at her ribs, while Sara looked on fondly at them both. Sara’s sister, Danielle was sitting beside her snapping beans, eyes on him, while her husband Hank was beneath the sink tinkering with something or the other.

Hank and Danielle had arrived four days before from California, just outside Beacon Hills to be precise, for a visit with her sister. Danielle was expecting her and Hank’s first child and wanted to share the occasion with her sister.

The problem was, Hank was a fixer. His wife only had to mention that something made a strange noise, didn’t sit right or looked kinda funny and the man was off and tinkering. Sometimes successfully, sometimes not, and that was when the Alpha got involved and growled at him, to Hank’s everlasting amusement. He seemed to get a kick out of annoying wolves and none more so than Ian. The two had an easy joking comraderie that Derek envied, though he’d never let it show.

Hank was also his uncle’s good friend and ally – so he was not just family and ally to the McCormick pack, but a trusted friend of the Hales too – both branches now. He’d been there when the hell had gone down in Beacon Hills, so he knew who Derek was.  Derek avoided the man at all cost, although there didn’t seem to be any hard feelings on Hank’s end. The day after their arrival, once Derek had realised who they were, he’d attempted to shy away from their company, but the vampire had simply looked at the young wolf and said, “You’re Peter’s family.” As if that explained and excused everything.

It didn’t in Derek’s book.

It was the black woman now who held his attention though. She was beautiful. He wasn’t sure if it was because of or in spite of her scars. Clearly human, and a human who’d been scarred by a wolf at that. _One who according to Sara still ran with them?_ It wasn’t until she raised an eyebrow in his direction that he realised he was rudely staring at said scars. He averted his eyes, mumbled an apology and made to rush away.

“Derek!” Sara called, as she caught his movement from the corner of her eye. “Come, meet our good friend.”

“I’m – I’m not clean,” he said in a weak voice.

“Are any of us ever?” the stranger responded, with a slight, wry chuckle.

“Derek, this is Braeden Montgomery. Braeden, meet Derek Hale.”

At the name, a flicker of something crossed Braeden’s face and her eyes darted to Sara before resettling on Derek. Blink and you would have missed it, but Derek didn’t miss much anymore and the look made him all the more uncomfortable, but she said evenly, “Hello, Derek. Nice to meet you.”

“Yeah, um, you too,” he mumbled unsure. “I’d better go . . .” he trailed off, indicating he was headed upstairs. The woman only nodded and he made quick his escape.

 _Dammit, of course she knew who he was. Everyone knew of the Hale traitor._ He sighed and his wolf whimpered tiredly.

++++++

“I’m sorry,” Braeden said as the despondent wolf disappeared up the stairs and the muffled sound of a door closing drifted down. “I didn’t mean to . . . You should have warned me. Hell, Peter or Dylan should have told me.”

“It’s ok,” Sara exhaled, eyes trained on where Derek had escaped, yet again. “I’m not sure there was anything you could have done that would not have sent him running.”

“That boy needs to forgive himself. Everyone else has,” Hank grumbled, sitting up on the kitchen floor, frowning.

“Baby, it’s not always that simple. He’s been through a lot and he also had a hand in some of what happened. I’m sure there’s a lot of guilt twisted up in him with nowhere to go. Sure, it’s easy for people to forgive you, but for some people that’s never enough. It doesn’t matter how many people forgive you or try to justify what you did. In your heart you believe they’re full of shit and the more they tell you it’s ok, the harder it is to trust what they say,” Danielle’s eyes were fixed on Braeden as she said this.

“Preaching to the choir, sister,” she said, a faraway smile on her lips. She knew exactly what Danielle was referring to – she’d been there after all.

++++++

Sophia’s pealing laugh climbed the stairs barely a discernable sound from inside his room where Derek squeezed his eyes tight wondering if he dared to go to dinner tonight.

He shed his sweaty clothes and headed straight for a steaming hot shower. Wrapping a damp towel around his waist and running a callused hand through his damp hair minutes later, he eased back into his room, dropping down onto the covers and staring at the ceiling. He held in the whine and closed his eyes.

He felt so lost. Stiles had told him to use this time away wisely, but he didn’t know how. Beyond burying himself in the work, he didn’t know what else to do, how to fill the hole that nothing would patch. His sister, now his Alpha, had told him there was room for him if he wanted to come back but he didn’t know if he ever wanted to see Beacon Hills or his sisters again, although his wolf cried out for its family, its pack.

++++++

Peter hung up the phone and took a deep breath, eyes on the wall but unfocussed.

“Wow!” Stiles said coming up behind him.

“Yeah,” he exhaled heavily. “I think Braeden just ripped me a new asshole.”

“Really, cause I liked the old one just fine.” Stiles laid a hand against his back, brushing a warm kiss against his shoulder. “What did she want?”

“To let me know I was a ‘low-down, stinking, dirty dog’, her words by the way, for allowing Dylan to send her to Valley without all the facts.”

“Grandpa sent Braeden to Iowa? To Valley? You two colluded and didn’t tell me?” Stiles’ surprise was genuine. Although their mind-meld was stronger than ever, over the past almost two years they’d worked at strengthening their bond, they’d also worked on blocks to provide each other with privacy in their thoughts as well. “It’s not going well? With Braeden there?”

His mate’s lips twitched. “She got hurt on that last job. When Dylan mentioned it, I suggested since she was so close that she pop in and pay Sara a visit, and seeing that Danielle and Hank are there she might want to touch base with both of them as well. She back working almost full out now. It was a good solution all around for everyone.”

Stiles hummed. “Especially Derek, huh? And you didn’t tell her the real reason you wanted her to visit?” he guessed.

“I didn’t want to colour what she knew and her reaction. After we left her here in Stanford when we went off to BH to rescue your dad, she’d be the only one that wouldn’t just him on sight.”

“Honey, you know Braeden better than that. The better prepared she is, the better she is at dealing with whatever. And you know she doesn’t like surprises. I’m surprised she called instead of gifting you a grenade this time. Wonder what she’s gonna do to grampy!?” Stiles smiled.

Peter chuckled slightly, but sighed. “Yeah.”

Braeden’s history was wrapped up in Stiles and his grandparents. For the longest time Stiles had believed her to be an architect who worked with his grandparents, his granddad Dylan in particular. The events in Beacon Hills near two years ago had revealed her true nature and identity to Stiles. Although she’d been left to guard the Stanford territory, when Danielle had showed up searching for Peter and Hank and found the dark-skinned mercenary at the house, even more had been revealed. Sara had then flown in from Valley and after Peter returned with his pack from Beacon Hills, it was clear that some mending had to happen.

While Braeden worked with Dylan, she had also worked privately as a mercenary and it was on one of those jobs that she’d been hired to track down Sara and her sister. Danielle and Sara’s father had been a real downright dirty bastard. He ill-treated his wife and daughters, the latter who’d managed to escape after years of careful planning. But Bruce Kirkland wasn’t a large scale criminal for nothing. He controlled his empire just like he did his family, with an iron fist. He was a hard man who made hard deals and sometimes cheated those he made deals with. One of those people he cheated was Dime Horatio, head of the Horatio crime family, who wanted to make an example out of Bruce, and paid to have the man’s daughters delivered to him.

Danielle was the one found by Danielle and taken, because by then Sara was a little harder to get to. Because of the mob families involved not many people wanted to get tangled up, which was how Peter had got involved. Hank had gone to Deaton for help to plead his case to Talia and had been turn down. When news had reached Peter, he had reached out to the vampire clan to offer assistance. They hadn’t been friends then, but the circumstances of what had unfolded bonded them closer than brothers.

The Braeden that had left that job in the care of Dylan and Edith Yates, had been a shell of a woman, especially when the werewolf the Horatios had hired behind Braeden’s back to track and kill her after she’d disposed of Danielle, had almost claimed the mercenary’s life. She’d balked at finishing the job and the werewolf had attacked, leaving her for dead. Back then the fates of the Stanford pack and the Yates’ had not yet crossed or intertwined, and Dylan had gotten Braeden out before Peter and his rescue crew arrived to rescue the younger sister.

“You know she’d do anything for our family. You only have to ask.” Stiles said, figuring his mate was taking a trip down memory lane.

After the rescue of Danielle and the death of the Horatio mob, the Stanford Pack had established an alliance not just with Hank’s clan, but the several other clans and those that did not have direct fealty, certainly respected Peter Hale for what he did, and for a family with no relation to him or his.

It wasn’t until after Beacon Hills, when Danielle and Sara, and later Hank had come face to face with the woman who’d refused to take Danielle’s life, even after kidnapping her, that the bonds between the families had grown. It had been a time of redemption, and a long and continuous road to friendship.

“You really think she can help Derek?”

“With her . . . our pasts? Yeah. It’s the one thing I think can help him. If she can’t, I don’t know what else to do,” Peter suddenly looked very sad. That hurt Stiles.

“You want to go see him? We could you know?”

“No, I don’t want to overwhelm him too much.”

“Ok, but if you change your mind I could have us there in a snap.”

Peter leaned over and kissed his mate. “I don’t deserve you, but damn, I love you.”

Stiles blushed, and redirected. “Come on. Let’s take Everdeen out for ice cream. I’ll steal her from her father.” And with that his mate was off and hunting for Peter’s second and his adorable daughter, and Peter was smiling again.

++++++

 _“You’ve got to decide who you are and who you want to be, because if you don’t this darkness that’s been growing inside you is only going to spread. And next time you, and those you care about might not come out on the other side alive. You all got out this time around, learn from that Derek,”_ Stiles’ voice echoed in his head as a knock on his door roused him out of sleep.

“Yeah?” he said groggily.

“Dinner’s ready, Uncle Derek. You’re coming down aren’t you?” It was Jeremy, Ian’s youngest, who had latched onto Derek almost the moment he’d arrived. Like Derek, he was the only son in a family of daughters, and for some reason, which puzzled Derek to this day, he looked up to him. It was scary to say the least.

“Let me put some clothes on and I’ll be there.” He could never refuse Jeremy.

++++++

Dinner was surprisingly not as strained as he expected it to be. In fact, it was almost spooky how enjoyable it was. He didn’t say much, but he listened and soaked up the joy and laughter of the McCormick pack. At the end he even offered to help clean up the mess that remained.

He was in the kitchen, stacking the dishwashers and listening to Jeremy ramble on about his English teacher, when Braeden startled him.

“A few more desert plates,” she said softly, during one of the infrequent breaks in Jeremy’s monologue. She held out five plates to him and Derek stood staring before Jeremy cleared his throat and smirked at him.

“Oh, right. Thanks.”

“It’s nothing. Do you need a hand?”

“Oh, no. It’s alright. I think Jerry and I’ve got it all handled.”

Jeremy, _the little sneak_ , chirped up, “Actually, Uncle Derek, I’ve got that English paper to finish. So I’d better do that now. Aunt Braeden can help you finish up.”

Derek’s eyes narrowed at the 13-year-old. “I thought you said you did the paper in the library today.”

“Yeah, but I gotta check it over don’t I? You know what a dragon Mr. Herbert is and that he’s got it in for me. After the poor score he gave on my last paper, dad will have my hide if I don’t score good on this one. You wouldn’t want me to fail, now would you?”

 _Con artist faker!_ But all Derek could do was smile, deep down inside. “Go on. Get outta here. I’m checking that work when I’m done too.”

At his threat, Jerry’s mischievous face lost its troublesome glow and he scurried away, now forced to actually go double-check his paper rather than chat online as had been the plan. _Drats!_

“I think you just scared the smarts out of that poor kid,” Braeden smirked, eyes gleaming at the Hale wolf.

Derek scoffed, “That _poor kid_ is a little too smart for his own good and just pawned his chore off on both of us. It’s his turn for dish duty tonight. He’s lucky, because if his father found out he skipped out before it was done, he’d probably be on stable duty for the rest of the week.” Derek monologued.

It wasn’t until he turned around and saw the soft smile on Braeden’s face as she stood there watching him that he realised he was saying more to her than he did to most people; especially people he didn’t know. A blush crawled up his neck. “Sorry.”

“What for?” she asked, a smile in her voice.

“I was going on and on and you probably just want to get this over with so you can . . .,” he gestured vaguely back out the kitchen doors.

“I wouldn’t have offered to help if I wanted to be somewhere else, Derek.” Something about the way she said his name sent a shiver racing up his spine. He fought responding to it. “What else needs to be done?”

“Umm, the dishes in that washer need to be removed and put away. But there’re a lot of heavy dishes in there, so maybe . . .”

“Derek, I’m not gonna break lifting a few heavy dishes. Trust me, I’m stronger than I look,” she chuckled again, and her eyes did that sparkly thing again and he had to look away.

 _Yeah, he could tell. The scars said it all._ He however, could not say the same and his heart hurt at that.

Seeming to realise that the mood had changed, Braeden said, “I’m sorry about before, about making you uncomfortable earlier,” she added when he looked at her puzzled.

“It’s nothing.”

“Now that’s not true and we both know it,” she hefted a particularly large dish which had earlier had potato salad in it, out of the washer and onto the counter. “Where does this go?”

“Over there to the right, on the bottom,” he pointed. “Look, it’s not a big deal. I know you’re one of Stiles’ and Peter’s  . . .” he trailed off, “whatevers, so you know about me.” He said more softly, “Everyone knows about me.”

“And because I know of you, in your book that means what? That I judge you?” Her hands were in her hips now, head cocked and eyes on him.

“What do you want me to tell you?” he asked, banging a pot from the stove top he was cleaning onto the counter. “That it’s all true? That I almost helped a bunch of murderous hunters, who killed my grandparents and were in league with my traitor of a mother to wipe out my family? That the apple truly doesn’t fall far from the tree after all? That I’m a worthless piece of shit? Was before and came out worse after?”

“That you’re a primadonna?” she quipped, stopping his self-flagellation.

“What?” the wolf snarled, and Braeden stood her ground.

“Look, we’ve all got baggage. We’ve all at some point done something we are ashamed to look back on and realise that _yes, that was me, I did that_. But you know what? We deal with it and move on. We don’t keep flogging ourselves, because then we might as well not be here.”

“And you think I want to be here?” Now his voice was raised and almost yelling at the audacity of the woman. _Who the hell did she think she was?_ Did she think she could trivialise what he’d done? “You think I don’t wish I’d died back there? That I don’t wish they’d left me to rot in that place? That I don’t wish every fucking day that that bastard Argent had plunged a knife in me or his bitch of a daughter had turned the voltage up high enough to make sure there was no coming back for me? That I don’t want to be dead!?”

There was sorrow in her eyes that he didn’t want to see, and it enraged him. “Don’t you dare pity me! Don’t you fucking dare!”

“Derek?” Sara’s soft voice was like a bucket of ice cold water down his spine. He realised then just how loud he’d been screaming and the fact that he’d backed Braeden almost into the counter, and his claws were extended, at a woman already scarred by people like him.

His wolf whimpered and he took a couple staggering steps back. He gasped and it felt like there was no air. Sara rushed forward, but he held up a clawed hand to ward her off, fear in his eyes. Struggling to pull his wolf back, like he hadn’t since a pup.

“Sara!” Ian called a warning, coming through the door, and she stumbled to a stop before him, not touching and not coming closer.

Braeden pushed pass her and knelt by him. “Breathe, Derek.” She reached out and grasped his hand in hers, looking right into his glowing eyes as she continued to talk him down from his anxiety attack. “Just breathe.”

He gasped again and some air got in. Two breaths later it hurt less, and five later, even less.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do this. I apologise, Derek. And you’re wrong you know,” she told him softly. “I don’t pity you. I admire your strength, to get up each day and to try to make life easier for this pack, to not be a burden for them; for what you’re doing for Jeremy who looks up to you.

“I know what it’s like to want to die; to pray for death. The difference between us is that I took the coward’s way out once.” She tore off a leather band she wore around her left wrist, showing the scars that resided there, hidden but never forgotten. “Somehow the fates refused to let me. So no, I don’t pity you or rejoice in your pain. We all have demons, Derek. Scars. All of us.” She smiled sadly. “Just ask Danielle about the ones I gave her once. Not everyone we do wrong to hates us forever for it. But there’s no forgiveness unless we forgive ourselves.” She patted his knee, refastened her armband and left the kitchen.

Derek stared after her.

++++++

Sara, with Ian’s help, got Derek up to his room and sat with him on the bed until he was a little steadier. A worried Jeremy hovered in the door like a fly waiting to set down after being roused by some unfortunate commotion. His father cast him a warning look before he pressed a hand to Derek’s shoulder, nodded and left him in Sara’s care.

“I really bombed out down there, didn’t I?” he asked his voice gravelly.

“No more and no less than anyone in your position would.”

“Will you tell me? Tell me about her; about what happened with you guys?”

Sara exhaled audibly and glanced at Jeremy silently. The boy came over, hugged Derek tight and wished them both a good night. “You can look at my essay tomorrow if you’re up to it.” The concern in his voice tugged heartstrings Derek didn’t know he still had or hadn’t acknowledged for a while. He hugged the boy back, swallowing the lump in his throat.

When Jeremy closed the door behind him, a sure sign to the rest of the pack not to enter without announcement and invitation, Sara began her story. She told him about the abusive father of two little girls, and his weak wife – a mother who did little to protect them, instead finding comfort at the liquid end of a heroine-filled syringe. By the time they’d entered their teens, Sara was pretty much looking after both her and her sister; protecting them from their father’s fist, belt, tongue and anything else he had to throw at them, as best she could. It was when he started trading her and making plans for her sister that she knew she had to get out.

She told him about her father’s drug and money laundering business and his greed. A greed that sometimes saw the people he did business with being short-changed and left angry and disgruntled. She told him about hers and Danielle’s silent plans to run away, and finally succeeding; the thoughts that after years of no footsteps behind them and no strangers watching just a little too closely, that they were safe. She told him about meeting Ian and his help to find a job and thereby helping send Danielle off to college to study pharmacology like she wanted to. About how in the last year of her college, someone that shouldn’t have been able to, tracked them down, determine to get revenge on their father through two daughters that had not seen or interacted with the beast of a man in years. About being sucked back into a life they had left behind. About Danielle’s kidnapping and torture and the woman that had been also tasked with taking her life, but couldn’t. About the woman, skilled with every weapon one could imagine, who had been an expert at tracking and extracting information; about Braeden not knowing the Horatios had also hired a wolf to kill her once she had completed the job – the same wolf who’d almost taken her life when she couldn’t finish the job, for reasons that even today she still paused to fully explain to them.

“My uncle was who Hank found to help?”

Sara nodded. “Danielle was wounded by the time we got to her, but she’d escaped the wolf and was on the run, because Braeden intercepted his attack when he would have killed my sister. Because Braeden couldn’t finish the job, he almost killed her, but it allowed Danielle to get away and gave us time to find her. Until Braeden did what she did, Danielle said she had never seen a human stand up to a wolf the way Braeden did, and she almost didn’t make it. The things she did to fulfil contracts back then would have made anyone with sense fear her. I think only the wolf managed to slow her down. We probably would have killed her outright, if we’d met back then, but Stiles’ grandfather got to her before we did. So things didn’t turn out as we expected.

“To this day I’m not sure what it was about my sister that made her hesitate, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. The next time we met was when Danielle went searching for Hank. She was afraid something bad had happened and went to Peter’s house and found Braeden there. She called me in a panic and I had to go. My little sister needed me. Peter and the others came back not long after and introduced Braeden to Hank and I. She explained that Braeden was the reason she was still alive.” Sara huffed, “It was a mess at first. Dylan and Edith, Stiles’ grandparents, had to intervene, to explain a lot of things about who Braeden was and what had happened.

“I mean you’ve seen the scars from her attack. The others, the ones on the wrists came later, after Dylan tried to put her back together. She almost had a relapse when she met Danielle again. It’s a lot to look the person you tortured in the eye, even if you didn’t take her life. It was a lot to deal with, but we all coped, and she was different by then. A little more like the woman you saw tonight but with more edge and danger to her. She’s mellowed, if one can call Braeden mellow, and God please don’t tell her I called her that, but Danielle said she seemed more comfortable in her skin afterward. I guess she wasn’t as lost as she was before. And that’s thanks to your uncle and him helping us all to bridge the gaps between us. She stayed in Stanford for a bit with Peter, that’s how they became close. I guess they recognise something in each other, I mean your uncle is a force to reckon with after all.”

Derek swallowed around the lump in his throat that would not move, and turned his face away towards his bedroom window. His uncle. The man who was trying his damnest to rehabilitate Derek, heavens knew why.

“I don’t know what he sees in me either. I shouldn’t be worth all this trouble.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. As long as there’s breath in Peter Hale and a chance that he could get his beloved nephew back, he’ll do whatever it takes. What your uncle sees is a great capacity for love, for good, and I see it too.”

Derek laid back, staring at the ceiling, letting Sara’s words rushed over him. “Tell her I’m sorry, for earlier. I didn’t mean to threaten her like that.”

At his words Sara chuckled. “Believe me, even in that situation she could have put you on your ass. Don’t underestimate her. Because she’s been scarred by a wolf, doesn’t mean she’s afraid of wolves. You were no threat for or to her, believe that.” She patted his leg. “Get some rest. You must be tired and it’s been a long night. See you in the morning. If you need me at all tonight, just call.”

She gave him a wry smile before she left him alone; the door making a soft snicking noise as it closed behind her.

++++++

The next few days passed in a quiet haze. Derek listened more than he spoke, but the pack didn’t react with concern like they did before. It felt, for some reason, like they were over an invisible hump with him. He still went for long walks sometimes after dark, but on occasions a still healing Braeden went with him. They’d become quite the pair and the first time Braeden made him laugh almost brought tears to Sara’s eyes.

They bade goodbye to her sister as she and her husband departed for home and Derek was surprised when Hank engulfed him in a giant hug as they said farewell. Hank was shocked when Derek returned the gesture.

“You’re going to be ok, little wolf. Trust me on that. Let go and allow yourself to heal.” Derek only nodded his thanks in response.

++++++

“How’d you do it?” Derek asked her one evening as they sat together watching and listening to the rushing of the Racoon River.

Braeden didn’t pretend she didn’t know to what he was referring. “I’m still not sure I have really. I just realised one day that I didn’t want to be in pain anymore. The physical pain that comes from a blade or a gun or whatever weapon, that I can deal with.” And Derek had seen some of the scars on her shoulders that a tank top couldn’t quite cover. “It was the pain inside I needed to deal with, coming to terms with the things I’d done. Unlike you, I didn’t have anyone to beg forgiveness from other than Sara and Danielle, and well, Hank too. Mostly because those who had to forgive me would have to do so from the beyond; but I wanted to feel free. I felt like the weight was always there and I wanted it gone.

“Sara told me she told you about some of it, but I gave it up for a while, after what happened in Stanford – the work; settled in with Peter and his pack; travelling between Stanford and Despera, where Danielle lives, getting to know her and Hank. For a while just being around people, people who knew what it was like to hurt and heal and love and just be . . . it helped; but for the most part it’s a one day at a time type deal.

“Besides, Erica was a living pain in the ass. If she can’t bring you out of a funk, nothing can. It’s not pretty; it’s not easy and it doesn’t happen immediately, but gradually it got better. I could separate the work from the weight it had on me. I could make better choices about the kinds of jobs I took and not allow myself to be used by anyone. That,” she breathed and Derek could smell the slightly sour note to her usual earthy tones, “that was important to me.”

“Do you,” he cleared his throat. “Do you think they could forgive me?”

She turned to look at him, _that damn sparkle in her eyes again_ , reflecting the river back at him. “Derek, they already have. I think the only person who hasn’t forgiven you, is you. But talk to your Alpha, she still is your Alpha. So talk to her. Level with her. Outline your needs and decide together how your pack can help. I have a feeling she’ll listen, maybe surprise you even.”

Derek shifted his eyes from the woman who was suddenly painted in the burning colours of the late evening’s setting sun. They’d become really close friends these past weeks as she allowed her ribs to heal from her last job, without feeling the need to seek out the danger again too soon. But Derek knew what he was starting to feel, what his wolf was telling him, was edging from friends to something more.

His wolf now stood up and reacted each time it caught her scent. It almost purred and went belly-up whenever they sat down together like this to talk, to laugh gently, to get to know each other. After each encounter, it felt, he felt contentment like he hadn’t in a long time and that scared the shit out of him. These things could so easily be lost and washed away and the job she did wasn’t tame or without its dangers.

He needed to speak with his uncle. Peter would know what to do.

++++++

It was Stiles that answered the phone when he called and for a moment his voice failed. It still did sometimes when he had to face the Breton.

“Derek?” How he knew it was him on the line, he didn’t want to hazard a guess.

“Yeah, hey Stiles.”

Stiles was silent for a few seconds, then he said, to Derek’s amazement again, “You’re looking for Peter. Hold on.” In the background he heard Stiles call out, “Honey?!”

Less than a minute later his uncle’s anxious voice was coming down the line. “Derek? What’s wrong? Stiles said you needed me.”

Derek smiled and shook his head. Stiles was powerful and scary as fuck at times. “It’s nothing urgent or alarming. I – I just wanted to talk to you about something. You got a few minutes?”

“For you? Always, Derek. What’s up?” he could hear his uncle getting comfortable and could picture him sinking into the couch in his library. The same library where Danielle, Braeden and Sara had had their first meeting before Braeden had left to complete a task for Dylan before returning to spend time and where she’d admitted she and Peter sat and debated history.

The same library where Stiles once openly told him how crushed he’d been about what Derek had done in their relationship to send Stiles fleeing from Beacon Hills. That there was a part of him that still wanted to obliterate him for the pain he’d caused and for his actions that led them back to Beacon Hills and almost costing Peter his life. Stiles had made it clear then that if it ever came down to a choice again between Derek and Peter, that Derek had better know that Peter would win out every time, and he wouldn’t hesitate.

And then shockingly in a kind voice, he’d paused to also thank him. To thank him for refusing him so he could find Peter, the one he knew he was meant to be with.

It was in that moment that Derek realised what he’d lost when he’d tossed Stiles away. He’d let go of that fierce loyalty that Stiles always had for those he loved, and at one point the epicentre of that love had been concentrated on him. He hadn’t deserved it then.

But he wasn’t that person anymore. Neither of them was.

“Derek?” Peter gently prodded.

“How’d you know Stiles was it for you?”

“Oh,” Peter said and he could imagine his uncle’s eyes going wide when he added, “Oh! Wow, ok. That talk.”

So he settled in to explain how his wolf had chosen Stiles even before he, the man, did. It was then that Derek started to understand; started to reconnect with his wolf in a way he’d been avoiding the past two years. He was still amazed that after everything that had happened and the history between the dark-skinned beauty and his family, somehow his and Braeden’s paths had never crossed until here and now. _Was that fate?_

So that night when he pulled a surprised Braeden to him and kissed her, his wolf howled its acceptance as he scented the woman’s attraction to him . . . And two minutes later he was on his back in the dirt, with a beautifully furious mercenary glaring down at him.

The chuckle that burst out of his chest and carried on the wind, left him gasping and weak with tears of joy leaking out his eyes. He looked up to find a less angry but more bewildered woman still staring at him, but with a shy smile on her lips, and his wolf’s soft wuff told him that just maybe he was ready to let go of his pain. Maybe his running could almost finally be over.

**Author's Note:**

> No blood and gore this time around, but it's a little emotional. Derek and Braeden discuss suicidal thoughts and one suicide attempt. Another character hints that she was sexually abused but no details are discussed, it’s just mentioned. If any of this will trigger or stress you, feel free to skip this continuation.


End file.
